This America
Wynton Marsalis [via Alex Ross]:
‘On the dawn of the most historic inauguration of our time, we nervously await ‘change we can believe in’… Will we come together or will even harder times drive us apart? In the din of expert voices on everything imaginable, what we don’t hear is informed conversation on how central culture is to our national well-being.
‘Our culture provides all the proof we need that we are together, that we have always been and, in spite of difficulties, will continue to be. It’s time for us to build a new mythology based on our many cultural triumphs instead of fixating on our never-ending missteps and conflicts.
‘The best of America was displayed during this election. That America is in the poetry and promise of the Constitution and the writings of Hawthorne, Twain and Hemingway, in every Negro spiritual. It sings through fiddlers’ reels, in the lilting interpretations of ragtime, in the optimistic majesty of John Phillip Sousa. That America transformed the whole world of music through the horn of Louis Armstrong and has passed it down through the sound of all jazz musicians everywhere. It is the well-woven cultural tapestry of America that will endure and see us through these and other unfortunate times.’
Marsalis – The Fiddler’s Tale, The Blues on Top
WCFSO – January 2009
